“Dr. Barney stared at me, his lips puckered. What was he so serious about? Who hasn’t thought about killing themselves, as a kid? How can you grow up in this world and not think about it?”

“I envied it; not the idea of having so much money that you could throw it away, but the thought of growing up in a world where someone cared so much about your happiness and so little about what you accomplished in life.”

“I don't think about anything," he says, "No thoughts at all! I think about not getting killed… that keeps me busy… One more day is one more day-That's what I think!”

“"They're all, 'Dude, we're sorry. We were just kids. Your know how kids are. Growing up' and I'm just like "Shut up!'" (talking about when he meets people from his high school.)”

“Stop worrying about growing old. And think about growing up.”

“I think Prince was heads, hands and feet about all the rest of them, I thought he left (Michael) Jackson in the dust. Prince was way beyond that. But how pathetic that he killed himself. Don't kid yourself, that's what he did. Slowly, I'll grant you … but that's what drugs and alcohol is: a slow death.”

“So you found a girl who thinks really deep thoughts.
What's so amazing about really deep thoughts?
Boy, you'd best pray that I bleed real soon --
How's that thought for you?”

“I don't care what people think about me, I care what they think about themselves.”

“If you tell stories about a really cool kid that you can relate to, and then you hear about kids being mean to that kid, then you feel what it is like to walk in his shoes. And you think, that is not right. I think the best way to write is to want to build empathy for your characters. You want the readers to feel the things they are feeling.”

“If being a kid is about learning how to live, then being a grown-up is about learning how to die.”